How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage to win a Nobel Prize in physics when computer science already has its own Nobel Prize equivalent in the Turing Awards?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

"Hey guys, AI is pretty big so let's centre our prizes on it this year. We can get some attention, and it's all about advertising, at the end of the day, isn't it?"

You can have your cake and eat it too

What does it mean to you to live a life that reflects biblical values?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

(Mumbles of assent)

When he's standing, in front of you

What’s the craziest thing you’ve heard pretending to be asleep?

A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"

"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"

When will dating stop being so hard for Gen Z?

"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Whatever.

Why was Nietzsche against essentialism?

Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:

[Younger voice] "But wait a minute, Ising-Lenz goes back to the 1920's. And didn't Hinton plagiarise rather a lot? He also didn't invent modern backprop, did he, that's Linnainmaa? And Amari preceded Hopfield, too. That's not a good look."

[The basic structure of artificial neural networks] has close similarities with spin models in statistical physics applied to magnetism or alloy theory. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes research exploiting this connection to make breakthrough methodological advances in the field of ANN.

Is it possible for the AfD to ever win the chancellorship in Germany?

"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"

Whatever.

"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"

What is the most comfortable heel height for women's dress shoes and what are the differences between wearing high heels and lower heels?

^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).

… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*

There you go.^†

Why would calling me an incel help anything? How does that solve anything? Why can’t you actually be helpful and offer productive honest advice?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.

Did the Sumerians, Babylonians and, other Mesopotamians create more, influence more and, were more advanced than Egypt?

In awarding prizes, the Nobel Committees often seem only marginally more competent than MTG is at explaining meteorology. And if they can give a literature prize for lyrics like:

In December 1973, when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, comedian Tom Lehrer dropped his mic and stamped on it—satire had just died.

"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"

I told my 13-year-old daughter that she should never start a fight, but has my permission to end it. She got suspended for ending a fight that some other girl picked with her by hitting her then retreating. How do I handle the school’s response?